Yeah, the title is not that great. Ever since I got matched to a Chinese guy from China, this word has been popping out a lot more frequent and I realised that we do have a lot of discrimination against a lot of people, whether we know it or not.
I am a third generation of Chinese origin, born in Malaysia. In another words, I am Chinese but a Malaysian. Growing up in Malaysia, we mingled with other races a lot, especially the Malays and Indians. Everyday in our life, in one way or another, we have to deal with them, whether it is paying to an Indian cashier or ordering from a Malay waiter or getting Chinese credit card sales rep bugging you, to us Malaysians, seeing another race is very common.
We do have some racial differences which I feel we should all appreciate and understand each other's culture and tradition instead of discriminating.
At my work, I have Indian and Malay colleagues, as well as Chinese colleagues. We work together, share our differences and learn more about each other's culture.
After China became intertwined in my life, I have seen a lot more things. Some Malaysian Chinese, do discriminate China Chinese. It's strange, when we were once originated from China. I found that some Malaysian Indian, do discriminate against India Indians too.
To tell the truth, I too discriminate China Chinese. We heard so much negative stories about them, from fake food stuff to young Chinese mistresses to eating weird meat and to me, it's just disgusting. When I visited China 15 years ago, I told myself never to step foot there again.
But I stopped discriminating when I saw how hurt my fiance was by all these. And I realised that not all China Chinese are like that. Sahaja Yogis in China are not like that. And they know too that they have negative reputation from all these fake stuff. My views began to change.
However, we still can't change the mindset of many Malaysian Chinese, maybe not immediately, but hopefully soon.
When my relatives found out that my fiance is a China Chinese, a lot of them questioned me. Sometimes when we were sitting and casually talking, the subject of China Chinese came out and some of my colleagues will be voicing out their dissatisfaction towards them, when they suddenly remembered that my fiance is from China, they quickly apologised to me, thinking that I was upset or hurt.
This morning, my parents were watching news from China and heard about the latest natural disaster hitting China and my mom said, 'how come China always a lot of natural disasters?'
When I visited China earlier this year with my parents and my uncle and aunty, the whole time it was how terribly the China people were behaving, how dirty they are, how uncivilised, etc, etc. I just listen quietly because I know I am part of China now.
We cannot generalise the whole society, just because of one person's act, like inventing fake eggs. We cannot discriminate the whole country, just because there was an earthquake that hit them. Just because majority of them speaks louder than us, it doesn't mean they are bad manners.
Same with India. It's their tradition to burn dead bodies and they scattered the ashes in the River Ganges. Just because of some photos you saw, it doesn't make the whole society disgusting. They are more spiritual than any other people, I feel. My friend wanted to visit India, but after seeing those burning dead bodies photos, she was disgusted and started to questioned what if she goes there and get the same treatment. I told her off for being so shallow. She was still justifying and all that, so I gave up.
I can't change what people feel, I can't change their mindset. I only pray that they see the beauty instead of the ugly side. There are beautiful sceneries in China and India. Some people are very honest and spiritual inside, even more than us sometimes.
I know that in the future, I have to listen more to all this and it's either I ignore them, or I just pretend I didn't hear or I tell them off. Whatever it is, I just hope I am not reacting.
If we can live together with another race, and accept their differences, why can't we do the same towards the Chinese from China or Indians from India?
Hopefully Sahaja Yoga will spread in China and Malaysia. Then many things can change.
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